HTC's upcoming Desire HD will be one of the top handsets on the market in terms of hardware specs. (Source: HTC)

The HTC EVO and other smart phones are selling at a frenzied pace

Taiwanese
phonemaker HTC Corporation released a relatively short earnings
report, but that was just fine as the numbers spoke for
themselves. Profit on a year-to-year basis had soared
from T$5.695B (approximately $184.54M USD at current exchange
rates) to T$11.1B ($359.68M USD).

That figure handsomely
trumped the consensus analyst estimate of T$8.7B by Thomson
Reuters I/B/E/S. The company also raked in T$75.85B ($2.458B
USD) in revenue, up from T$33.81B ($1.096B USD) a year
prior.

HTC's stock rose around 3% percent on the strong
earnings report, and is currently at T$719.00/share.

The
outlook seems rosy for HTC. Despite facing increased Android
competition from the likes of Samsung, Motorola, and Dell, the
company has the benefit of being on what appears to be the winning
team in the smartphone war and is poised to stay
competitive. The company in September announced two upcoming
models. Comments Steven Tseng, an analyst at RBS in
Taipei, "Investors are comfortable with HTC's status in the
Android market. HTC will keep a stable position, even if it is
not a leader in the sector."

The first phone, the HTC Ace
(aka the HTC Desire HD), is an ultra high-end smartphone (1 GHz
Qualcomm Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, 768 MB of DRAM, and an
8-megapixel camera) with 4.3-inch SuperLCD
screen. The RAM is particularly impressive, and should
allow for speedy app performance.

The second recently
announced phone is the HTC Desire Z, a slider version of the popular
Desire model. While featuring less than high-end specs, it may
still sell pretty well given that its hardware is superior to most of
its slider competition.

HTC is also poised to capitalize on
Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. While
Windows Mobile has been much maligned, there is actually significant
excitement surrounding WP7, and HTC is hoping to translate that
excitement into continued sales growth. Sources indicate that
it plans on having handsets
ready at launch later this month.

"We can't expect users to use common sense. That would eliminate the need for all sorts of legislation, committees, oversight and lawyers." -- Christopher Jennings